Settler — Restaurant in Salem

I had found Settler on Yelp and I really wanted to eat here during our one day in Salem. After walking all day, Settler was out last stop on our day in the Witch City. I never anticipated to have my best culinary experience in Salem, but here I am telling the tale. Settler has a 3 course meal style of serving. We received the chef picked appetizers. I don’t have the exact names, but it was a ricotta style dip, a pumpkin hummus, and another dish that was like a falafel. It was all phenomenal. We also decided to get a cocktail called a Yusuf Highball. It was refreshing, light and exactly what we needed after a long day of ghost stories, witch trial history and people watching.

Once we had our order taken, we had settled on a few different dishes. As a starter, I chose the shrimp and it was so insanely good. I could have easily kept eating that. My husband ordered the pate and he cleared his plate. I had the Spaghetti with clams. I really should have taken a picture of the menu to have the real dish names. This was the best pasta I have ever had. It was a white sauce base. It was fresh, decadent and yet light at the same time. My husband had the beef two ways. Both him and our friend raved about it. I had a piece and it was melt in your mouth delicious. My friend’s husband has the chicken and they both said it was delicious.

Although we felt stuffed to the brim, we had to have dessert. We all shared the cheesecake and the chocolate tart. Both rich yet light.

Aside from the incredible food, the people there were amazingly kind. We were able to be feet away watching the chef work with his team. This was something that truly stuck with me. We even wanted to know where they had gotten their cocktails stirrers from, and the chef showed us the link.

This place was a true culinary experience. It was delicious, beautifully kept, and had wonderful people.

The bartender also gave us wonderful recommendations for Maine.

I do plan to come back to the Witch City and Settler is at the top of my...

After scouring Boston’s restaurant scene for a special bday dinner for a friend, I settled on Settler. What really sold me was its reputation for a house made sourdough baked from a 50+ year old starter gifted to them by the star studded Michelin legend Daniel Boulud who the owner worked for years ago. I bake as well, so was especially curious to see what the hype was all about. The bread was strong on the sour (a bold move given that flavor is not appreciated by everyone), with a spongy dense crumb and toothsome blond crust. We enjoyed it enough to order at least three plate refills of additional slices. As for the food, it had some high’s and low’s which averaged each other out. The standout was the whipped ricotta with butternut squash Muhammara served with spicy lavash. The disappointment was the nova scotia halibut which was bone dry from overcooking—a mistake they made three times on each of the three plates that were ordered! Shocking for a restaurant of this caliber, and price point. Dessert was underwhelming (and at additional cost to the pre-fix $75 menu): an uninspired frangipan tart with ginger ice cream that was more crunchy than smooth from ice particles left by freezer burn. Then there was this aesthetic disgrace: After rejecting my request to bring a bday cake they assured me they would send a candle with dessert. So I expected what we ordered (or a bonus dessert or scoop of ice cream as restaurant overachievers will do) to have a candle plunged inside it. Instead, they put a lonesome candle in a little cup containing nothing at all. A sad looking celebratory dish! Aside from those missteps, the rest of the dishes did not disappoint, like the crispy falafels, Calabrian chili clams, and quinoa. But in the end when the oversized bill arrived its magnitude seemed to far exceed the...

My friend enjoyed her chicken entree very much. The dishes are, overall, just okay and quite aggressively priced (referring to a salad, meze plate and pasta as a main meal). I asked for hot sauce or harissa (which is in some of their menu items) and my request was denied. I would not have written a review if it ended there. But, when I was halfway into my pasta, I bit down on some hard unbreakable nutshell/pit type thing. After I pointed it out and asked what it was from, our waiter told me that someone from the kitchen said it was from the stem of a bean called a dragon tongue. That didn't sound right to me as the hard item wasn't breakable or bendable. When another man came to the table to give us the bill and a couple tiny cookies, I pulled up a photo of the dragon tongue plant and asked what part of the soft looking plant that hard piece came from. He just avoided the question, assured me it wasn't from an animal bone and said it wasn't an olive pit (I don't think there are olives on the menu). He thanked me for bringing it to their attention, but didn't discount that entree. There is no way the object was a stem of a plant - so I'm not sure why they told me it was. It was the feeling I was being played that led me to write this negative review (as I don't usually write reviews in places I'm simply just disappointed in). Also - I felt mad at myself for giving a 20% tip (on top of a mandatory kitchen fee) when I felt unsettled (and wasn't thrilled with the service). My irritation increased as I walked around the cute city after the meal. I took the rest of my pasta to go, but I'm going to compost it, as their being misleading about the foreign object only makes me wonder if someone knew it was something even worse. It's...